


With the Prime, With the Matrix

by Caius



Category: Transformers Generation One
Genre: But everything here is pretty consensual, Earnest discussion of relationship needs, M/M, Multi, No one has sparks in G1, Other, The Matrix of Leadership is an asshole and probably a rapist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-17
Updated: 2013-06-17
Packaged: 2017-12-15 05:41:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/845960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caius/pseuds/Caius
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inside Rodimus, the Matrix is alive, and it wants Magnus.</p>
            </blockquote>





	With the Prime, With the Matrix

The Matrix had never spoken to him.

Not in the time he'd known Optimus, not when it had been in his own chest. For Magnus, it was as voiceless as a cube of energon, replete with energy and symbolism but in itself, mindless.

He hadn't wished to carry it, hadn't wished to be Prime, but if it could have given him guidance, could have let him speak to Optimus, Sentinel, Alpha, all the other Primes of distant memory--

\--he could never, ever speak of his envy. Never ask Rodimus to pass along a word. Not when it was so obvious, every day, how much the Matrix hurt him.

"It doesn't hurt," Rodimus corrected him, one day. "Not physically. It feels kinda...nice, actually." He stared down, as embarrassed as Hot Rod had been when Magnus caught him trying to sneak a mouthful of their meager energon stores. Rodimus put a hand to his own chest, then drew it back, awkwardly. "Did it hurt you?"

"No," Magnus said, and he lifted his own hand to Rodimus' chest, curious, hesitating just at the edge of Rodimus' energy field. For Magnus, the Matrix had felt of nothing at all, nothing but the weight of responsibility and the horror of so many deaths, so many failures--and that part, at least, he knew Rodimus felt as well. 

"Go ahead," Rodimus said with a small smile that was never one of Hot Rod's expressions, not even with all the new lines on his faceplates. Rodimus' hand wrapped Magnus' wrist--it was barely long enough, now--and guided it to his chest. 

Holding the Matrix had not prepared him for this. Being near Optimus had not prepared him for this. In Rodimus, the Matrix was a living, feeling, _powerful_ being, pulling Magnus closer. Before he knew it, he was on his knees with his face pressed to Rodimus' chest, filled with an ancient and powerful desire. 

"Prime--" he said, pressing his lips to Rodimus' plating, again and again, fingers moving to undo clasps that Hot Rod had not had, thinking only of the flame inside his leader. 

"Magnus, please--" Strong hands grabbed his helm and pushed _away_ , and Magnus came to himself with a gasp, throwing himself backwards and staring up at Rodimus-- _Hot Rod_ \--in horror.

"I'm so sorry, I didn't--Rodimus, forgive me." Magnus wrapped his arms close about himself, forcing himself to look up--*not* at the chest and the Matrix within, but at Rodimus' faceplates, cracked and aged by the Matrix inside him, and into the glistening blue optics. "I am so, so sorry." Sorry for the near-assault, sorry for everything that had happened to them since the battle of Autobot city. 

"It wasn't you," Rodimus said, faceplates twisted in bitterness that Hot Rod had not been capable of. "I wasn't even _me_." Magnus' clumsy, Matrix-drunk touch had made marks, marks Magnus had forbidden himself from looking at until Rodimus' smaller hands matched where Magnus' had been, and Magnus' optics were dragged back to the clasps, yearning. "This is what you want. You want me to open it for you?" Rodimus' hands twitched, and Magnus wished he dared reach out, wish he dared restrain him. "Want me to open up and let you--let _it_ \--take us both?"

"No!" Magnus said, hastily, turning himself physically aside, trying to block his vision, block the energy field before the Matrix could make him say yes. "Don't. Please."

Magnus refused to look, but he could not keep himself from listening intently, tracking the small sounds as Rodimus' hands moved off his chest-clasps, moved down to his hips, clutching at himself as desperately as Magnus did. Hear the slight creak of neck-joints as Rodimus' head shook and slid downward, too far down, probably, to get a good look at Magnus.

"It would be great." Rodimus said, softly. "It would give you the greatest overload of your life. Greatest overload of _mine_ , since it took me inside Unicron." 

Magnus shuddered. "You--there--?" The Matrix had--and with Galvatron? He did not ask; he knew who Rodimus had taken the Matrix from, knew who had taken the Matrix from Magnus. 

"Yes." 

Magnus heard the shrug, made himself glance up, for a moment. The Matrix's energy field was brighter than before, but he thought he could resist it. Knew he _had_ to resist it. 

Rodimus matched his gaze, staring down at his own chest. "You want this."

"No," Magnus said, which wasn't, precisely, a lie. "I want--I only want what you want to give me. You, Rodim--Hot Rod."

Rodimus smiled. "What Hot Rod wanted was simple enough." A suggestive gesture above Magnus' antennae, and Magnus _wanted_ , suddenly, in a way that had nothing to do with the Matrix.

"And Rodimus?" Magnus pushed his head up, just a little, Rodimus' hand painfully tantalizing in the sensory field of his antenna. 

"I want you to want _me_." The hand moved upward, almost out of range. "Not Hot Rod. Not the Prime, not the Matrix." That sad smile again.

"I want--" Magnus stopped, not willing to just tell Rodimus what he wanted to hear. "I know--you know how much I desired Hot Rod. And I can't help wanting a--my--Prime, and the Matrix--" He shivered. "I want to want you the way you want to be wanted, but I don't know how."

Rodimus laughed. "Neither do I." He sighed, a long cooling vent through his entire body, that hardly began to cool the Matrix's fire. "Lie on your back. Hands behind your head."

Magnus put all his doubts aside and obeyed. 

"Don't move them," Rodimus said, stepping over to stand astride Magnus. "Ready?"

Magnus locked his arm-joints obediently. "Yes, P-Rodimus."

"You can call me Prime. Um, for now." Rodimus' hands were back on the clasps of his chest, and Magnus passworded the arm-locks, fiercely restraining himself as his optics devoured Rodimus' chest. 

"Open." Rodimus said. Ultra Magnus' chest armor slid aside, baring the little compartment that the Matrix had once so lifelessly inhabited. 

"More?" Magnus asked. There were many delicate internals he could bare to his Prime, but he was not sure he trusted them to the Matrix. 

"That--should be enough." Rodimus said, lowering himself carefully to his knees, so close--! Then he put one hand into Magnus' chest--it took all of Magnus' self-restraint to stay still--locating one of the wires that linked to his fuel pump. "This--is going to hurt for a moment. Don't move."

"Yes, Prime." Magnus triple locked his mechanical systems, focusing almost all of his sensory network on the Prime and the Matrix above him.

Rodimus pulled at the wire. 

The brief burst of deadly pain almost kept him from noticing the chest plates pulling apart above him, and then the Matrix was there, pressing down against him, hacking into his systems. 

It was--Rodimus and Optimus and Sentinel and Alpha and Beta and Elita and Prima and countless others that Magnus knew no names for, hardly knew if they had names, they were so deep in the Matrix--all of them 'facing with Magnus at once, flooding his body with energy, overloading his systems repeatedly. If he had not paralyzed himself, he would have fought, if he had not been commanded by his Prime he would have released himself and killed them both, unable to control any one body in the knowledge of so many.

In the middle of chaos, clarity. Long ago (how long, did he even exist yet) a young Prime (Hot Rod, Orion, A2, he did not know) on his lap, so small and innocent and _delicate_ looking up at him and demanding protection--and then the Prime was no longer young, the optics less demanding, more _commanding_ \--"Yes, Prime, always!" 

He thought he might have said it aloud, and then everything was chaos and overload, until the fuses finally melted and everything went black.

When Magnus came back to himself, Rodimus was still on top of him, but their chests were closed and the Matrix seemed dormant. "Magnus--Ultra Magnus!" he called, and Magnus did not know how long he had been calling. 

"Prime," Magnus said, when his vocalizer worked again. 

"...Oh thank you, thank --" Rodimus wrapped his arms around him, clumsily, since Magnus was still forbidden to return the gesture. "I was afraid--afraid it had--afraid _I_ had killed you. Um. Can you still move?

"I think so." Taking that as permission, Magnus started disengaging his various joint locks until he could finally wrap his arms around his Prime, holding him close as Rodimus clung to him in relief, like Hot Rod had when Magnus came back from a dangerous mission--but never quite like Hot Rod again. 

"Thank you, Rodimus." He pet Rodimus' spoiler soothingly, though as much for himself as for his Prime. Rodimus was here, Rodimus was Rodimus, not any other Prime, and not the thing inside him. 

"Was it--good for you?" Rodimus asked, anxiously. 

Good was entirely inadequate, but Magnus did not wish to elaborate. "Yes." He clutched Rodimus a little tighter. "But this is better."


End file.
